Are the Knicks and Cavs really the best the East has to offer to the Thunder or Spurs?

The New York Knicks must have been licking their chops at the second-round series between the Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers. Neither team looked prepared to take on a Knicks team that has found its mojo at just the right time of the season.

In the end, the Cavs took Game 7 from the Pistons, winning running away, 125-94, and embarrassing Detroit on its home floor. But does anyone really believe in Cleveland?

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What the Cavs took was an ugly series, one full of turnovers on both sides of the aisle, and spouts of porous defense, nothing like the extraordinary stretch we have seen from the Knicks in seven straight victories. And certainly nothing like the dominance we have seen from the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs in the West.

That’s the thing. If we were to power rank the four remaining teams in these NBA playoffs, it would pretty clearly be: 1) Thunder, 2) Spurs, 3) Knicks and 4) Cavaliers.

There seems to be a chasm between the top two teams out West — two talented, young, deep and hungry rosters — and the Knicks, a more seasoned bunch, but one with plenty of questions on both sides of the ball for their first 85 games of the year.

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The Knicks have found themselves over a stretch of seven games, running a free-flowing offense that features Karl-Anthony Towns as a focal point, and collectively playing the kind of defense that can contend for a championship … in most seasons.

Whether or not it can contend for a title this season is another matter. OKC and San Antonio have been that good, seizing the league with rare combinations of talent and energy, youth and poise, effort and execution. It is something special to watch.

The Thunder are a 64-win defending champion, boasting the NBA’s back-to-back MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is quietly — or more loudly now — compiling the greatest guard career since Michael Jordan, and in some respects keeping pace with the GOAT at only 27 years old. Oklahoma City is also returning All-NBA talent Jalen Williams to a rotation that could probably win the whole thing without him.

And the Spurs are a 62-win rising…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/are-the-knicks-and-cavs-really-the-best-the-east-has-to-offer-to-the-thunder-or-spurs-043524237.html

Author : Ben Rohrbach

Publish date : 2026-05-18 04:35:00

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